DISH reviews

A Scrooge – DISH is an expert in penny-pinching everything, including you. Salary is 20% or more below market standards. Performance-based merit increases are really just COLAs (Cost of Living Adjustments) and top performers barely get enough outpace inflation (by ~1% if you’re “exceeding expectations”). Health benefits are subpar and getting worse. Workspaces are second-hand from when Merrill Lynch owned the building in the 90’s and are literally falling apart. During COVID, Charlie doubled his net worth from $5.4B to $10.7B, and DISH’s quarterly earnings rose over 50%…but he still used the pandemic to rationalize huge layoffs, promotion freezes, and cancelling all earned merit increases company wide. Positions open up but are often never backfilled. Instead, the extra workload is just piled on to the remaining team members without increasing their pay. This is a Fortunate 250 company worth billions folks, and that’s not even the half how distastefully cheap it is. Suspect Culture – DISH uses the veil of culture as a way of enforcing questionable company policies while granting itself immunity from all inquiries, compromises, pleas, and criticisms. And if you try anyway, prepare to be visited by the Thought Police. Also prepare to have your performance appraisal tank now that “The DISH Way” is 25% of your score. There are control issues that stem from the very top and seep down into the rest of the company; an unspoken belief that employees cannot be effective unless there are systems in place to monitor and track everything they do. You’ll also hear “opportunity is our #1 benefit” a lot, but this is just the way they spin the disconcerting attrition issue. Opportunity is their #1 benefit because turnover is their #1 problem, and also because everything else they offer is notably below market.

There are a lot of issues with the culture at DISH, mostly stemming from a lack of trust and emotional intelligence in DISH leadership. It starts in the C-Suite and trickles all the way down through VPs and Directors. We have core hours where we are required to be in the building because we can't be trusted to balance our work and personal lives. We don't have work-from-home options because we can't be trusted to be productive at home. We are micromanaged because we can't be trusted to work autonomously. Many of the leaders (mostly VPs and above) have little ability to effectively manage their emotions and consequently their employees. They are disconnected, vindictive, dominating, and quick to anger. And they are too close-minded to recognize the cultural issues, listen to their employees, and make a real change.